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Talk:Feature Comics Vol 1 51
Just say NO to indexing the filler. Shadzane: I, a humble noob and minion, am not bold enough to undo your change here, but here's why somebody should: 1/ The humorous one-pagers have no plots to synopsize, no villains to index, no vehicles or items or locations to archive, and very very VERY little that distinguishes one month's gag from the next. They've got no individuality, no personality, no interesting anything. (That's not to mention how badly they suck, on their own merits, which alas is probably not a defendable consideration in making this kind of decision.) It's called "filler" for a reason. The one-line NOTEs at the bottom of the page provide the creator credits; what more is really needed? 2/ That they wasted er occupied a lot of pages in Feature Comics, before the action/adventure/detective stips started up, doesn't seem like much of an argument FOR indexing them all. In fact it works the other way. It adds clutter. The TOCs on these anthology titles are already mostly over one screenful in length. Adding line after line after line of "Lala Palooza" and "Joe Palooka" just gets in the way of finding the good stuff, so it's a disservice to the reader. 3/ It sets a horrible precedent. Once we start doing it in Feature Comics, then there's no logic for not doing it to ALL of these titles. You and I and BartlebyCS, plus whoever else inexplicably takes an interest in wiki-ing these g.a. comics, are unlikely, in our lifetimes, to ever even finish writing up all of the actual superhero features in the DC and Fawcett and Quality comics of that era. Adding the one-page gags just makes the task ever more hopeless. 4/ DC doesn't own those characters, and never did. If it's okay to index these features, then it would be okay to index Fawcett's Captain Midnight comics, which has been forbidden. I hope that the rule that prevents our wiki-ing Captain Midnight will also prevent our wiki-ing Lala fricking Palooza. 5/ Here's a thought experiment: When you started adding "Clip Chance at Cliffside" to the TOCs for Smash Comics, there was a rationale, of some sort, for why you thought that was a good idea. If you articulate those reasons and examine them, do those reasons apply to this proposed change? Stoop Davy Dave (talk) 11:40, July 14, 2015 (UTC) :Here's my thoughts in general on indexing short stories (aka filler): : : There is already a policy in this wiki to not index filler. So I don't do it. However, there doesn't seem to be a definition of 'filler', so I made up my own. In my indexing, I have considered 'filler' to be any story of three pages or less, and I do not index those stories. : : However,for Feature Funnies/Feature Comics, I made an exception. When the comic first began, it was full of short short stories. One pagers, two pagers, three pagers. You couldn't really say that the short stories were filler -- they were most of the book! So for Feature Funnies/Feature Comics only, I have considered 'filler' to be any story of one page or less. I still didn't index the one pagers -- see how Poison Ivy (and later, Big Top) disappear from the index when they go to one page (and then Big Top comes back in the last few issues when it gets back to two pages). : :Some indexers seem to also define filler by genre. They will say a six page humorous story starring Bigfoot McGee is filler, while a four page adventure story staring Flying Man is not filler. I reject that thinking. It comes from the first wave of fandom in the sixties who were only interested in the super-hero stuff. I think we are beyond that now. : :This is all just my opinion on what filler is. You do not have to follow it. You can feel free to not index the humor stories (or even the odd genres like sports (Clip Chance)). But please don't delete the indexing work I have done. : : And if there is more strict definition of filler somewhere in the docs (or if the admins come up with one), I will follow it and change how I index. Shadzane �� (talk) 15:43, July 14, 2015 (UTC) :As for the other topic you bring up, of licensed features in anthology comics, here is how I understand the rules: : :If DC published it, we include it. If DC published a Casey, Crime Photographer (picking a radio show at random) comic book in 1946, we would fully index those issues and stories. If Casey, Crime Photographer stories appeared in Sensation Comics, we would index those too. (We wouldn't make character pages for Casey and his supporting cast, but that is a separate issue.) : : However, if Quality published a Casey, Crime Photographer comic book in 1946, we would not index it, because when it comes to other companies, we are only including the stuff DC bought from other companies, and Quality didn't own Casey, so DC didn't buy Casey. : : However, if Quality also put some Casey, Crime Photographer stories in Smash Comics, do we index those? I have been assuming the answer is yes, because we want our index of Smash Comics to be complete. But if an admin told me to stop, I would. Shadzane �� (talk) 16:28, July 14, 2015 (UTC) :: I can't argue with most of that, so here's a nit that I'll pick instead: "You couldn't really say that the short stories were filler -- they were most of the book!" Yeah I could. The fact that the filler filled a lot of pages doesn't disqualify it from being filler. :: "Some indexers seem to also define filler by genre. ... I think we are beyond that now." I'm not. If Molly the Model suddenly ran to five pages and Wings Wendall shrank to two, I'd still be indexing Wings and neglecting Molly. More realistic example: eventually in National Comics, "The Barker" replaces Uncle Sam. Anyone who wants to index The Barker can, but it sure won't be me. :: "if Quality also put some ''Casey, Crime Photographer stories in Smash Comics, do we index those? I have been assuming the answer is yes, because we want our index of Smash Comics to be complete.'' " I think that's the rationale at work when we're indexing "The Clock," which character I'm not all that sure DC ever owned. Brenner may have owned it, or at least it moved from Centaur Comics to Quality Comics when Brenner did. Stoop Davy Dave (talk) 03:45, July 15, 2015 (UTC)